


Our Hands, Clasped So Tight

by Maebe



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Cancer, F/M, Illnesses, Medical Procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 09:32:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3605166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maebe/pseuds/Maebe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started so suddenly. It was just a cough. Until it wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Hands, Clasped So Tight

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to this amazing cover of Death Cab for Cutie's I'll Follow You into the Dark and this fic just kind of appeared. Sorry about that. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXxTRnxmY-c

It started so innocently, a cough that stubbornly stuck around. Beth told him to go to the clinic a few times, just to be sure. Just to get checked out. He refused every time, saying Dixons were made of tougher stuff and a cough wouldn't kill no Dixon. Beth wishes now she hadn’t laughed, hadn't agreed. 

Two months after his bold declaration the cough got worse, moving deep into his chest until it rattled his bones like wind chimes. One night they got so bad Beth found him hunched over the bathroom sink staring at the porcelain as it became flecked with blood. His blood. She drove him to the hospital as soon as the coughing subsided enough to let him stand straight. 

The next weeks were a blur of paper gowns, testing, re-testing, revolving doctors and nurses all with progressively more pitying smiles. The not knowing part finally ended with a warmly lit office in the oncology ward. Daryl and Beth gripped each other’s hands tightly, as if their ability to feel the other’s fingers laced with their own created an impenetrable barrier that no diagnosis could get through, no illness could separate. 

They were wrong. 

Cancer. Lung Cancer specifically. Shockingly the years of cigarette smoking and hard living weren't solely to blame. A buildup of asbestos fibered had found in his lungs leading to the tumours spoke to years of working in toxic environments. Basically, any shit-hole he took a job at to help Merle could've been the culprit. 

The next year was hard. They fought as much as they held onto each other. After starting chemo Daryl wanted Beth to leave him. He didn't want her to see him sick from treatments, tired from life. She was wasting her life looking after his ass, didn’t she see that? As hard as he was fighting for her to walk out the door, Beth fought for him. Holding his hair back as he was sick, rubbing his back to soothe the tremors. Drove him to all his appointments, made him take his medications on the strict schedule devised by his doctor. She even researched special foods he could stomach when nothing else would stay down. Through it all she held his hand, even sang whenever he asked. For every “leave” he threw at her, she responded with “no” and “I love you.” 

He’d lost so much weight, face almost gaunt these days. The night prior Daryl had a fever. No big deal, it was a standard side effect of treatment so they went to bed as usual. Sometime during the night, Beth woke suddenly. Daryl was shaking next to her, drenched in sweat and worryingly hot to the touch. He wouldn't wake when she called his name, breath seeming to be a rattling struggle. 

The ambulance ride to the hospital felt like it would never end. 

Doctors told her his fever had been dangerously high, breathing laboured due to fluid that steadily filled his lungs. He’d been on oxygen once before but now they said he’d need it twenty four-seven. His lung capacity so decreased now that he couldn’t get enough oxygen on his own merit. They'd inserted drainage tubes upon arrival, pressed ice into his skin along with an IV drip of medication that would lower his fever. The good news, they told her, was the chemo had done its job. If he recovered from this, he’d be on the top of the surgery list to remove the much reduced tumour and diseased dead lung tissue.

Despite their assurances this was good news, Beth felt cold at their word choices. _IF_ he survived. Like his recovery wasn’t certain. Like this could be the last chance she had to hold his hand, kiss his face and tell him she loved him. 

But he’d be okay. Like he said, no cough could kill a Dixon. 

Beth sat as close to his bed as she could get in the uncomfortable plastic hospital chairs. If climbing onto the bed next to him was an option, she’d’ve taken it. Hell she’d done it before. But the drainage tubes in his chest meant her night vigil would be in this chair. Hand in hand as they had been since the beginning Beth watched him sleeping. Praying. 

In the dark, sometime after two a.m., Beth sang to him softly. 

_Love of mine, some day you will die_  
But I'll be close behind  
I'll follow you into the dark… 

**Author's Note:**

> Again, sorry guys. I know the ship is nothing but angst right now without me adding to it. 
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, kudos as well. Hope you're all well!


End file.
